[Chief Rum]

Yeah, that was the Rosenthal article I read. Only information being attributed to a source is the physical, which Price first broke. So the only point of evidence being thrown out there is the existence of a physical.

Now that is interesting news, like I said, and does lead one to wonder if the Red Sox are signing Lackey. But Rosenthal than goes on for a whole page's worth of speculation based entirely on this one bit of fact about the physical. He presumes the contract, speculates on what the Red Sox are saying to Bay's agent, gets in stuff on the Halladay thing, etc. I mean, he takes just an anonymous MLB source, and extrapolates it to an enormous extent, far beyond what is credible in general journalistically.

This makes me wonder two things--A) Does Rosenthal know more than he's saying, but isn't cleared by his source to speak about it yet, and is hiding behind "speculation"? Or B) is Rosenthal following the usual path of baseball writers during the hot steve season and trying to fill a column to a deadline because that's what he needs to do, or because he's under pressure to "beat" ESPN or Ed Price to a full story?

BTW, back to the physical, doesn't that usally follow signing the contract? Why would Lackey's agent agree to allow a physical before a contract was signed? He wouldn't. A physical is not required until a deal is done i.e. "pending physical", and there's a risk in allowing a physical before a deal is done (if something comes up, the player and agent lose leverage). But for this to have gotten to the physical stage--after a deal is signed--and no one to hear about the signing, I find that hard to believe. The agent would be talking. The Red Sox would be talking. All of the teams in on Lackey, their sources would have leaked the info when the agent inevitably brought the Red Sox proposed deal back to them to see if they want to top it. There's just so much about this that doesn't pass the "common sense" test.